過去の取引と比較できない新規の輸入財価格を反映させることができる輸入物価指数（exact import price）を計測した結果、公表されている米国の輸入物価データには無視できない上方バイアスが働いていることが明らかになった。これをもとに輸入関数を推計したところ、米国の対外赤字が従来考えられていたほど均衡値から外れたものではないと判断された。ただし、2000年代以降は輸入数量の理論値と実際の数量との差はむしろ拡大する傾向にあることが分かった。 : This paper calculates the Feenstra (1994) “exact price index” for each category of USA imported goods and aggregates them in order to analyze the USA import demand equation for assessing the seriousness of the external imbalance. What distinguishes Feenstra’s exact price index is that it incorporates new product varieties. The exact import price index thus calculated suggests that USA conventional import prices are biased upwards. The consequent downward adjustment in import prices causes appreciation in the real exchange rate and lowers the excessive portion of imports (the difference between actual and theoretical amounts of imports obtained from the import demand equation). Since the early 2000s, however, the role that new product varieties play in lowering the excessive portion of imports has declined because the impact of new products on import prices has been outweighed by the impact of the spike in primary commodity prices, which has resulted in a substantial depreciation of the real exchange rate. It is possible that this depreciation combined with relatively large excessive imports has caused the subsequent USA current account deficit to stop expansion in the late 2000s.

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Copyright (C) 2011 Taylor & Francis. This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in "The exact import price and its implications for the US external imbalance, Fumihide Takeuchi, Applied Economics Letters, 18(17), pp.1697-1703, 2011". Applied Economics Letters is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2011.560103